Easy Populate and Excel data handling

Hi, I hope you can shed some light on an excel tab delimited issue i am having.

When editing the sample tab-delimited product txt file that EP create, i would use excel to enter product descriptions with multi lines using soft return (alt enter ).
eg.
Feature a:
Feature b:
Feature c:
(within the excel cell, i would use alt enter between each line so the 3 feature lines are all in one cell)

I would then save file as tab delimited.
However as i open file again in excel as tab delimited file, excel has split each line into its own cell.

As a result, i cannot import this data into Easy Populate due to corrupted data.

How can i make excel save all 3 lines within a cell as one cell and not 3 cells?

And also, excel would insert " after cell featuring oz, eg weight: 0.7 oz". Don't know why it does that.

Any help will be appreciated.

tks, Mac

Remember that a tab-delimited TXT file is NOT a spreadsheet! You lose Excel formatting when saving as a TXT file.

If you want line breaks (and other formatting) in your product description text, then you must use HTML tags...

eg:

Our biscuits are the <b>finest</b> in the world.<br /><br />We make them using the finest ingredients.<br /><br />Here, we feature the chocolate creams and they come in the following sizes:<ul><li>Small</li><li>medium</li><li>large</li></ul>

Will render as:

Our biscuits are the finest in the world.

We make them using the finest ingredients.

Here, we feature the chocolate creams and they come in the following sizes:

• Small
• medium
• large

The description in Zen will take HTML , im not sure the alt enter thing will work for zen anyway. simple put in a </BR> tag where you want the line break. if your filling in the weight field , this should be just a decimal number.

EDIT : argh Too SLow ! and better layout above

There is a WIKI tutorial on Easy Populate. Go to the WIKI and search for Easy Populate (2 words)

Many thanks for the reply.

I currently have 300 products to import into database, each product has about 5 lines of descriptions. I was hoping i would not need to manual remove the line breaks from each line and add the <br /><br />.

Is there a way i can automate this or minimise my time in repairing this data?

Can i perhaps use the substitute command in excel to replace the line breaks with <br /><br />? If so, how would i do this?

many thanks again.

Hi Crazycucumber & Fairestcape, i managed to find a solution that may help others too.

Removing line break from Excel
In Excel, choose Edit>Replace
Click in the Find What box
Hold the Alt key, and (on the number keypad), type 0010
This represents a line break in Excel.
You won't see anything in the 'Find What' box

In the Replace with box, type the characters that you want to use
instead of a line break eg .<br />

Click the Replace All button

This worked a treat. Many thanks.

Yes... using search & replace in excel (or OpenOffice) is the quickest way of changing a feature...

... as you point out, a knowledge of the procedure is what counts!

eg: (I have used CONCATENATE in Excel when I've had to put the product weight into the description text).

I have a similar ... but different question to as regarding the Excel file data handling...

I am able to get EP to work fine.. and to incorporate html tags such as <br> and <font color="red"> <table> etc. etc.

However, what I would really like to add is a <style> and <script> commands... ended of course with a </style> </script>

When I do that, the .txt file mashes the entire style/script commands into one huge long line... which of course does not get interpreted correctly once it is imported to the Zen database.

Any thougts, ideas, workarounds?

Thanks

Tom

You will have problems if you try to embed <script> type components where line breaks are relevant. Better to use standard html referencing in your markup, and to put style declarations and js scripts into their respective files/folders elsewhere.

I don't suppose there is any way to add other html in the description field? For example, I want to add a bullet list <ul> with <li>'s... is this even remotely possible?

swamyg1:

I don't suppose there is any way to add other html in the description field? For example, I want to add a bullet list <ul> with <li>'s... is this even remotely possible?

Most BASIC html tags will work, so <ul><li>...</li></ul> will be OK... written in a single line, eg:

<p><b>Product Features</b></p><ul><li>Child friendly</li><li>Cheap to run</li><li>Highly accurate</li><li>User serviceable</li></ul>

Will result in:
**
Product Features**

• Child friendly
• Cheap to run
• Highly accurate
• User serviceable

I just made a CSV version of Easy Populate which can handle all you're talking about. soft returns and pretty formatting in description boxes will work just fine. I posted it on page 209 of the Easy Populate support thread:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=665610

I found that I can place song lists into single cells in Excel (cell selected, Format, Alignment, Text Control, Wrap Text, OK; alt-enter to begin new lines within cell).

This only works when each product is listed on a single line for each product entry into Easy Populate, so it is done without carriage returns.

The description includes a list of titles, numbered using the <ol> ordered list HTML command.

When the HTML ordered list did not display numbers on the product screen in the Zen Cart, I tried to fix the code by just editing the individual product, but have been unable to make the numbers show in the cart. However, in the product edit preview, the numbers do show for the ordered list.

On the theory that maybe a new line is needed for the <ol> command, I tried adding carriage returns after and before the <ol> and adding the <br /> after and before, in the product editing screen, without success.

Does someone know how to make the numbers appear in an html ordered list inside a product description, either by a coding process in Excel itself, or once it is in the Zen Cart, through the editing screen?

As I had no replies, I asked the ordered list question above on the forum for the Zencart_Zen template, and received a solution under Post #160 from Clyde Jones.

Rather than being an Excel matter, it turned out to be a CSS code addition to my template's style sheet that was needed, seen here:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=920767#post920767

Much appreciation goes to Clyde Jones.

Notageek